Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Disney, STOP IT...

Okay, I recently bought the new Platinum edition of Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Well, I can say this: it is a good DVD release. The special features make quite a solid package, and the film presentation is excellent.

I wish they'd drop the music section of special features on Disc 1 of these releases. It usually consists of a sing-a-long of selected songs from the movie. I mean, some kid may enjoy this, but really, if you want the lyrics onscreen, there is the subtitles, and each song usually has it's own chapter, anyways, making this feature pointless.

The other is more annoying. They take a memorable song from the movie, and rape it.

Okay, maybe not rape.

Destroy.

Murder.

Mutilate.

Disembowel.

RUIN.

Anyways... They re-arrange it for some new artist that usually originated on the Disney Channel to "sing" (someone who knows music has told me they actually "sing through their nose," which is not really singing at all, but speaking with the music, which Julie Andrews was forced to do in Princess Diaries 2, no slight to her, she had to because of a condition, but I digress) this song.

I first saw this when I bought my sister The Little Mermaid Platinum Edition, with "Kiss The Girl" sung by High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale. This kind of disgusted me, because the original had a reggae air to it that was lost in the new pop version.

Later on, when Peter Pan went Platinum, I bought it, as it was a favorite childhood film of mine. This featured "The Second Star To The Right" covered by T-Squad. I loved the song, but this cover was awful. The magical, choral sound of the original was replaced by "ain't we so cool?" pop CRAP.

Now, Sleeping Beauty I bought two copies of. A friend who lives overseas prefers the Region 1 editions, and will be paying me back. I bought my own because it looked like an excellent release of a Disney classic. This time around, it got worse as Hannah Montana's Emily Osment butchers "Once Upon A Dream."

Now, the previous cases, they were ruining original Disney songs, and if Disney's ruining their own songs, let 'em. BUT! In the case of this song, and all the other songs from the film, the music was not Disney's in the first place, but that of Tchaikovsky. Disney brilliantly adapted the music of his ballet for the score and music for the songs for their movie.

SO, this re-arrangement is not only offensive to hardcore classic Disney fans like myself, but also to fans of Tchaikovsky's classic music, as the video's song (though I can hardly bear to watch it) doesn't even sound like the original.

Please Disney, stop it with the pop CRAP. I know it makes money, but it's not art. It will make you some money now, but when time goes by, will it be remembered? Will it seriously be labeled "classic?" It's in all your recent movies and music.

The only Disney-released movies from the past few years I've been impressed with, they didn't really make: Walden Media and Pixar did. (Though I've not been a fan of everything Pixar...) Walt would be ashamed!